I am a Senior Political Contributor at Forbes and the official 'token lefty,' as the title of the page suggests. However, writing from the 'left of center' should not be confused with writing for the left as I often annoy progressives just as much as I upset conservative thinkers. In addition to the pages of Forbes.com, you can find me every Saturday morning on your TV arguing with my more conservative colleagues on "Forbes on Fox" on the Fox News Network and at various other times during the week serving as a liberal talking head on other Fox News and Fox Business Network shows. I also serve as a Democratic strategist with Mercury Public Affairs.

Pulitzer Prize winning tax reporter, David Cay Johnston, has written a brilliant piece for tax.com exposing the truth about who really pays for the pension and benefits for public employees in Wisconsin.

Gov. Scott Walker says he wants state workers covered by collective bargaining agreements to “contribute more” to their pension and health insurance plans. Accepting Gov. Walker’ s assertions as fact, and failing to check, creates the impression that somehow the workers are getting something extra, a gift from taxpayers. They are not. Out of every dollar that funds Wisconsin’ s pension and health insurance plans for state workers, 100 cents comes from the state workers.

Simple. The pension plan is the direct result of deferred compensation- money that employees would have been paid as cash salary but choose, instead, to have placed in the state operated pension fund where the money can be professionally invested (at a lower cost of management) for the future.

Many of us are familiar with the concept of deferred compensation from reading about the latest multi-million dollar deal with some professional athlete. As a means of allowing their ball club to have enough money to operate, lowering their own tax obligations and for other benefits, ball players often defer payment of money they are to be paid to a later date. In the meantime, that money is invested for the ball player’s benefit and then paid over at the time and in the manner agreed to in the contract between the parties.

Does anyone believe that, in the case of the ball player, the deferred money belongs to the club owner rather than the ball player? Is the owner simply providing this money to the athlete as some sort of gift? Of course not. The money is salary to be paid to the ball player, deferred for receipt at a later date.

A review of the state’s collective bargaining agreements – many of which are available for review at the Wisconsin Office of State Employees web site - bears out that it is no different for state employees. The numbers are just lower.

Check out section 13 of the Wisconsin Association of State Prosecutors collective bargaining agreement – “For the duration of this Agreement, the Employer will contribute on behalf of the employee five percent (5%) of the employee’s earnings paid by the State. ”

Johnston goes on to point out that Governor Walker has gotten away with this false narrative because journalists have failed to look closely at how employee pension plans work and have simply accepted the Governor’s word for it. Because of this, those who wish the unions ill have been able to seize on that narrative to score points by running ads and spreading the word that state employees pay next to nothing for their pensions and that it is all a big taxpayer give-away.

If it is true that pension and benefit money is money that already belongs to state workers, you might ask why state employees would not just take the cash as direct compensation and do their own investing for their retirement through their own individual retirement plans.

Again, simple.

Mr. Johnston continues-

Expecting individuals to be experts at investing their retirement money in defined contribution plans — instead of pooling the money so professional investors can manage the money as is done in defined benefit plans — is not sound economics. The concept, at its most basic, is buying wholesale instead of retail. Wholesale is cheaper for the buyers. That is, it saves taxpayers money. The Wisconsin State Investment Board manages about $74.5 billion for an all-in cost of $224 million. That is a cost of about 30-cents per $100, which is good but not great. However it is far less than many defined contribution plans, where costs are often $1 or more per $100.”

If the Wisconsin governor and state legislature were to be honest, they would correctly frame this issue. They are not, in fact, asking state employees to make a larger contribution to their pension and benefits programs as that would not be possible- the employees are already paying 100% of the contributions.

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This has to be one of the most specious arguments I have ever read. The pension money comes from the taxpayers who pay the salaries. It’s the whole package that is more generous to public employees than the packages of most private workers who are footing the public bill. Here’s one easy solution – public employees work for the public, so just put every request for wage and benefit increases on the ballot for a vote each November. In that way, the public can choose what compensation package they want to offer to the public employees who work for them.

Forbes should hire Dan at the Scott Daily Post to write articles – they would be more intelligently written.

Hey…been awhiles since I’ve been trashed by Scott Daily Post. Nice to see you back. As for this being the most specious argument you’ve ever read, check in with your colleagues. I’m sure they can give you examples of some of my other articles that they found infinitely more specious.

Once that money is in their paycheck, it ceases to be public money and is the employee’s money. Your trying to dictate how public employees spend their paycheck is the same as my demanding control over how you spend yours. I’m sure you wouldn’t sit still for that either.

Actually, taxpayers pay for the service. Just like those private companies that get government funds to perform work – my cousin works for a company that builds low -income housing – but EVERY PENNY of their money comes from the government. He, like you, complains about public employees’ pay and benefits.

If you want a vote – ask the voters which services should still be offered.

If you want a country that has a small government and mostly private schools you should first investigate those countries with this system – like Iraq, Iran, Brazil, Afghanistan. Very few public services.

It’s enough to make you puke that these right wing radical commentators “play” stupid. Apparently these dim bulbs think that public workers should work for free and any pension that is 100% funded by the worker is illegitimate b/c taxpayers pay for the public workers’s valuable services.

Willful ignorance does not impress me.

Neither does a bunch of rightwing janitors who think they own the building.

Wake up you dolts. You are nothing more than traitors to your own economic class of people. Join us. Right where you belong.

Gray: Your easy solution is good in theory but in the real world our students attended school in portable mobile home classrooms for 10 years before a public referendum passed to build an addition onto the school. When do you think they’ll vote to give us a raise? I’m afraid I’ll be dead by then.

I’m curious as to YOUR intelligence. I’m sure you think it would be a brilliant idea to privatize every job in this country, and you would be a fool for those thoughts. Taxpayers who are not government workers LOVE to complain, complain, complain about their “lot in life.” Those damn teachers, custodians, snow removers, street cleaners, mail clerks – because MY taxes pay for THEM to live the good life, I should have a right to vote on their compensation. I would LOVE to see how much you would pay to send each of your children to a private school that hired private custodians. And heaven help you if your child was disabled – even more money per year. And the private cost to pick up your garbage? To have your mail delivered? To have your snow removed? To have a private firehouse on call for you if your house goes up in flames? To have a private police department on call for you if someone tries to rob you?

It would be wonderful if every whiner out there would stop complaining like a five year old that someone else has something you don’t. If we’re discussing Scott Walker, hey – I could run for the governor of WI and be a hero too! I mean, if all it takes to be the leader of our fine state is to vilify an entire class group, convince people that it’s that group’s fault for everyone else’s lot in life, and then steal money from them to plug the budget hole, ANYONE CAN DO IT!

Hey, guess what? I don’t think it’s fair that Jennifer Lopez makes more money than I do, AND gets great benefits and summers off. She’s to blame for the fact that I can’t afford a Sony Playstation III. So I plan to run for the governor of California and MAKE her take a pay cut. That’s fair, right? I SURE THINK SO!

Hey, guess what? I don’t think it’s fair that Scott Walker makes more money than I do. He’s to blame for the fact that I can’t afford a pony. So I plan to run against him for governor of Wisconsin and MAKE him take a pay cut. That’s fair right?

This article is incredibly intelligent, well-written, and is currently “blowing up” social media sites across Wisconsin. Thank you Rick, for writing something honest and un-biased. This is my first venture onto Forbes.com, and as I am an individual who prefers People magazine to politics, you may not hear from me again. But from all of the teachers, custodians, fire and police officers, snow removal and garbage collectors, a heart-felt appreciation from us to you.

Thanks, Amy. And I do see by the reports I get that the piece is circulating around Wisconsin. It’s a bit odd as I wrote this article close to one year ago. But I’m certainly pleased that my friends in Wisconsin are enjoying the piece.

Actually, gray, it’s your argument that is specious. The school district I work for has a total amount of compensation availalbe for the employees as a group. That includes salaries, insurance, pension contributions and payroll taxes. This is a zero sum game: if something goes up, something else has to go down. For most of my friends in the private sector, it isn’t that way, in fact more than once my friends have recieved bonuses for fixing a major problem, frequently using my help). The private sector is the one that gives out “gifts.” BTW, my total compensation is 20% below than the median private sector salaries (not including their benefits) for my peers in my town (I’m not a teacher any more). Oh, and every week I give the taxpayers in my town a gift of 15 to 30 extra hours of work.